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Despite China’s ban of low-quality copper scrap imports since the beginning of 2019, the volume of copper units contained in scrap imports has defied expectations by rising in the first five months of this year.

Between January and May this year, China imported 682,508 gross tonnes of copper scrap, according to customs data. All of the imports are of the higher-grade category 6 scrap.

This is down 28% from 946,568 tonnes imported in the same period of 2018 when both the higher-quality category 6 scrap and a limited amount of category 7 scrap was permitted into the country.

Nonetheless, the amount of copper contained in the imported scrap has risen so far this year alongside the improved grades of scrap imports.

Analysts surveyed by Fastmarkets assessed the copper content of scrap imports to China in 2019 at 78%. This compared with a copper content in scrap imports in 2018 of 55%.

The rising copper content means copper scrap imported to China in the first five months of 2019 contained 532,356 tonnes of copper, up slightly from 520,613 tonnes in 2018.

This not only implies a smoother-than-expected transition for Chinese markets following the removal of category 7 scrap imports, but also indicates the success of the policy since Beijing has maintained stable copper inflow from scrap imports while diverting the less desirable low-quality scrap to other countries.

Rolling the clock back two years, category 7 scrap supplied 700,000 tonnes of copper metal to China before being named a culprit of land pollution and eventually banned.

On the other hand, more copper contained in category 6 scrap, such as candy, berry, birch and cliff, has been brought into China due to importers trying to take delivery of feed before the new quota system took effect on July1.